History Headscratchers / Idiocracy

** I think the movie left a few things only implied because, well, we don't live in 2505 and should be able to grasp them: 1) The people in the future not only are less intelligent and educated, but less competent in ''anything'', including physical labour. 2) Technological and, especially, medical progress skyrocketed between the late 19th Century and our present day; before that, life was much harder for everyone. 3) Before out world became all comfortable and non-threatening, humans had to be either intelligent or at least competent in something to survive; it's not like 2505-era people would breed less in the past, it's just they probably wouldn't ''survive'' to breeding age in a more hostile, less techno-easy world. Basically, technological and medical progress erased any threat to the survival of people too dumb to live, so they could thrive. Also, consider that less educated (or intelligent) parent are less likely to place value on educating their children (or taking care of them at all), resulting into a cultural downward spiral. Of course, that's a stereotype and a generalization, but the movie clearly plays stereotypes for laugh and a tongue-in-cheek social commentary.

** Something else to break your brain on. How the hell are they getting purified water for their toilets that Joe uses to water the plants? 2505 society sure as hell doesn't seem competent enough to realize the difference between clean(no salt) water and seawater they'd probably get it from(which considering the garbage problem, would probably be pretty nasty already)

* At Joe's rehabilitation the national anthem is played by several dozen guitar players. While they do play with relatively little skill, it is still really difficult to learn the guitar (I know from experience). With the short attention spans of everyone, I find it doubtful that anyone would have the devotion to practice an instrument for hours and hours. People don't seem smart enough to know how to tune their guitars. Since they clearly don't understand cause and effect, the very concept of "place fingers over frets to make sound" would probably confuse them. I always thought the joke would have worked a hell of a lot better has they been playing Guitar Hero instead of actual instruments.

** Have you ever read redneck-who-shockingly-became-a-leftist Joe Bageant's ''Deer Hunting with Jesus'', or his later work ''Rainbow Pie''? Working-class people like the West Virginia townspeople he grew up with are often presented with almost no opportunities in life; the system is rigged against them, starting with poorly funded public schools for example. They often learn to expect little out of life besides endless labor, so they find entertainment where they can. Clevon doesn't have to be stupid for the scenario in the movie to make sense; he and the "bitches" can be sympathetic, as well: maybe the reason so many women agreed to have sex with Clevon is that, as fellow working-class folks, they agreed with Clevon's value system, and their town had such few opportunities for entertainment or meaning in life it's easy to see why sex would fill that niche. And if multiple women got pregnant by the same man...well, motherhood can provide a lot of meaning in life if women have few other opportunities to pursue. As for why Jr. was also able to have sex with multiple women, again, think about it from the point of view of people who grow up in hugely blue-collar towns: football teams are often opportunities to bring heroism to the town. So Jr.'s situation in the movie also makes sense, but only if he constantly kept winning football games against other states and bringing glory to his community. It wouldn't be the first time multiple women were attracted to power or heroism.

** If stupid folks reproducing more is enough for them to overwhelm the world, typically producing stupid children in the logic of the movie (which it is) and smart people reproducing less is enough for them to become a rarity in the logic of the movie... then it follows that homosexuals, who don't reproduce at all, are completely extinct and now considered some sort of terrible ancient fad... especially among a population that really likes their 20 kids a couple. Alternatively: gays are still everywhere, they're just too oblivious to realize they're gay. Alternatively alternatively: 2505 is so past that kind of prejudice they don't care about gayness enough for there to be any reason for who is and is not gay to actually be apparent on screen. They still use fag as an insult for the same reason a lot of people in 2005 did - they heard it from somebody who heard it from somebody etc. - and don't connect it to homosexuality because they're not really big on understanding implications, acknowledging implications, or occasionally knowing what 'implications' means.

** I think the movie left a few things only implied because, well, we don't live in 2505 and should be able to grasp them: 1) The people in the future not only are less intelligent and educated, but less competent in ''anything'', including physical labour. 2) Technological and, especially, medical progress skyrocketed between the late 19th Century and our present day; before that, life was much less easier for everyone. 3) Before out world became all comfortable and non-threatening, humans had to be either intelligent or at least competent in something to survive; it's not like 2505-like people would breed less in the past, it's just they probably wouldn't ''survive'' to breeding age in a more hostile, less techno-easy world. Basically, technological and medical progress erased any threat to the survival of people too dumb to live, so they could thrive. Also, consider that less educated (or intelligent) parent are less likely to place value on educating their children (or taking care of them at all), resulting into a cultural downward spiral. Of course, that's a stereotype and a generalisation, but the movie clearly plays stereotypes for laugh and a tongue-in-cheek social commentary.

** In the world of high-technology, no one person knows how to build an entire thing end to end. Instead, the task is split up between dozens or hundreds of people who each know how to do one specific part(Consider a computer, which is basically just carefully-arranged sand. No single person on earth can complete all the steps to turn sand into a computer). The world of Ideocracy could easily work just like that - no single person knows how to build a Dildozer, but if 450,000 people each now how to build 1/3rd of a part...

** Simple. The last smart people built up a huge automation infrastructure while they were still around. That infrastructure is still mostly running. But noone left knows how to fix anything, so when something breaks, it breaks for good unless it can be fixed by the system. The entire system is starting to break down by the point of the movie. See the first season Next Generation episode: "When the Bough Breaks" for another example of an advanced society that forgot how the stuff they built worked and became dependent on the machines that already existed. In that case, the machines still worked fine (the problem was something else entirely), but it's still an example.

*** A double-dose.